Under the Darkening Sky
by SG-girl
Summary: Logan Charmer is 18 when the Blackout happens...


**Under the Darkening Sky**

_**Power is the great aphrodisiac- Henry A. Kissinger**_

Logan Charmer is 18 when the blackout happens, a young private fresh from Basic. Bright-eyed, optimistic, and ready to protect the United States from what is surely a terrorist attack.

Less than a week later, looting rioters kill everyone in her unit and Logan is left to bleed to death on the floor of a ravaged Walgreens.

Needless to say the Pollyanna attitude dies sometime shortly after she wakes up in a Militia hospital tent with a jagged surgical scar and dry mouth. Monroe comes to visit not long after, his cold blue eyes lingering on hers for a split second longer than the other patients in the tent.

Considering that the other two patients in the tent are an insurance adjustor and a preschool teacher, she assumes the majority of his 'we will impose order' speech and the intensity of his gaze are directed at her. Logan isn't stupid. She's well aware of the dire situation that the country, hell that the world is in, she understands power and structure and control and chooses the side that just saved her life.

She shakes Monroe's work-rough hand, meets his gaze dead-on.

Seven years later and that gaze still lingers.

"You're slipping," Monroe says almost conversationally as the field medic adds to the collection of scars that she's amassed in the last half a decade, the majority of them the result of the man across from her. Ignoring the pull of the needle and thread in her side, Logan scrubs a hand across her face, going for nonchalant and probably ending up somewhere between resigned and exhausted.

A farm kid with a scythe and nothing left to live for. She'd taken the scythe, the kid had taken seventeen bullets. Despite being alive, Monroe was giving off less than enthusiastic vibes in her direction. In fact, disappointment seems to be the body language indicator of the day.

"Someone tried to assassinate you and I'm the focus of attention?" she asks, aware that the insolence in her tone will undoubtedly cost her, but she's tired and she's sore and she doesn't give a flying fuck. Monroe's eyes narrow, but before he can reply, the tent flap opens and Captain Garrett swaggers in. Logan turns her attention to the medic and his stitching, skin crawling under Garrett's lecherous gaze.

"Reporting for duty, sir." Garrett says, snapping off a salute as if he wasn't a sous chef before the Blackout. "I assume I'll be taking over Captain Charmer's position until this is sorted out." Logan glares at the side of Garrett's head, wishing she was in a healthy enough state to start a fist fight. Garrett smiles smugly at her and Logan lets all of her bad mood pour into her scowl. The smile vanishes instantly.

"All done, ma'am." The medic pats her side, distracting her from making Garrett damn near wet himself. Logan stands and pulls her bloodied and torn shirt on over her head, ignoring the twinge of pain it causes. Monroe watches her, blank faced as usual, still leaning against the tent's center support post. Garrett smirks again, his expression as open as Monroe's is closed.

"With your leave, sir," she says and doesn't wait for said leave, just pushes out of the tent and into the light of the blood-red sunset. All she needs is a shower and a nap, in that order and without anyone insinuating that she's a fuck-up. The other militiamen avoid eye contact as she heads for the four canvas walls she calls home.

Three hours later finds her fed, showered, suffering from insomnia. Staring at the shadowed ceiling of her tent—the one that she has all to herself as the only female on Monroe's command staff—Logan huffs out a sigh and grasps the edges of her cot, levering herself up. Her hiss of pain is loud in the silence.

"Always so stubborn, Charmer," the voice from the corner of the tent makes her tense, the stitches in her side pulling with the movement. "Tell me, who exactly do you need to prove yourself too today?"

Logan swings her legs over the side of the cot. This is an old conversation. It usually accompanies the creation of a new scar.

He always pushes.

"Tell me you didn't sneak into my tent to have a heart-to-heart," she says and pushes to her feet. "Because I'm not in the mood." The chuckle is dry and humorless. A sudden draft of air tells her that he's moving, but she's slower than usual, reflexes dulled by pain and exhaustion.

"So goddamn stubborn, aren't you, Marine?" the hand that grasps her by the neck is like a vise, the arm that encircles her waist—just above the fresh sutures—like steel. Logan fights anyway, rams an elbow into his gut, stomps on his instep. It's like an infant taking on a professionally trained boxer.

She's dumped unceremoniously on the bed seconds later.

"Stay," the command in his voice has an undercurrent of barely controlled rage to it and Logan obeys, that good ol' survival instinct kicking in. The hiss of a flame sparking into existence and the candle on the desk sputters to life, revealing Monroe, staring down at her. None of the anger in his voice is reflected in his face. She makes a move to sit up and he shoves her back down, less than gentle.

"Let me see," he says and Logan dutifully drags the hem of her shirt up, stopping just past the new stitches, stitches that have bled a little, probably in their scuffle. A lot of red on a snow-white bandage.

"Stubborn," he says with absolutely no inflection in his voice, simply stating a fact and goes to her footlocker in the corner. The fact that he knows right where to go says a lot.

"The job description says that I take a bullet for you," she says to his back, dropping her head onto the pillow and closing her eyes. She wants sleep, sleep without dreams or nightmares or anything.

"You're very good at it," he says, closer this time and she jumps when he touches her. His movements are brusque but efficient: stripping the old bandage, using her med-kit to redress it. She stays silent, eyes shut, trying not to think about how vulnerable she is, how she's all but baring her throat to a killer. Monroe strips off the disposable gloves—her last pair, which means a trip to Acquisitions—and dumps everything in the basket under her desk.

Wisely, Logan stays put even though she does lift herself on her elbows to watch.

"Garrett has your shift tomorrow." He says, putting the med-kit back and heading for the tent flap. Opening her mouth to protest, she's stopped when he turns, one eyebrow arched as if he's expecting her to complain and is circumventing it.

The thought of being so predictable rankles.

"You can have it back on Thursday," he says, a corner of his mouth quirking up as if she amuses him.

"Thank you, sir," for a split second, his blue eyes aren't so cold, aren't angry and suspicious, but that second is gone as soon as it happens and he nods, once, ducks away into the night.

Getting up to blow out the candle sends a sudden wave of exhaustion rolling through her, a wave that makes even her military-issue cot look inviting. Carefully settling on her uninjured side and tugging the itchy wool blanket up around her throat, she closes her eyes and drifts off, unaware of the man standing just on the other side of the canvas wall, hands fisted at his sides, hands that had just minutes before almost given into the barely suppressed urge to stroke her black hair.

Without a sound, Sebastian Monroe turns and stalks away.


End file.
